Tag Archives: Richmond Italia

Step Back Into Time Nine Year Ago

The begining of Xball started with the Nations Cup 2002

Nation’s Cup InvitationalNEWS RELEASE

This August 7th-11th, the “Diablo IAO” 2002 will host the World Premiere of the annual “Nation’s Cup Invitational”, a prestigious new International Paintball Title Event. The Nation’s Cup will bring hand picked “All Star Teams” from eight Nations, to represent their Country in the “Olympics of Paintball”, playing a unique Paintball Tournament format called “X Ball”.

One Captain per Country:
A single Captain from each Country, selected by the “Nation’s Cup” officiating committee, will select their own All Star Team rosters, from their own Countrymen. Each Country’s Team will travel to the Diablo International Amateur Open in Pittsburgh, to make their bid for the highest national honor in Paintball:
Bring Home the “Nation’s Cup” Title!

The Captains will be announced as soon as each Captain confirms their acceptance of this prestigious challenge. USA Captain, Bob Long, is expected to complete his special “Team USA” roster choices soon, to be announced in the coming weeks.

“X Ball” Format:
“The Nation’s Cup “X Ball” games will be the most exciting Paintball Games you’ve ever seen”, says developer Richmond Italia of Diablo Paintball. “From high atop the command tower, a digital ScoreBoard will display the score, the remaining game-time and penalty-box times, it will even display Players’ chrony-speeds, transmitted from on- field chronys!”

Italia went on to say, “ Just like hockey, Football, and Soccer, the games will be played in four quarters. Teams will be motivated to hang the flag as many times as possible before the buzzer marks the end of each quarter. Teams will face each other, game after game, hang after hang, until the period is over”. Each Flag-hang will bring a brief 3-minute re-set period for Players to get ready again. You’ll see Teams with Pit- Crews, racing to get Players re-set between games. Imagine Pit-Crew uniforms, Pit-Carts with Paint coolers, goggle and barrel cleaning stations, Speed-Pod re-fillers, and all kinds of special gear being created by each Team, in their frantic effort to get every Player ready for each re-start. As fast as physically possible, the Pit crew must handle every Player; hits cleaned, tanks re-aired, packs re-filled, barrels cleaned, thirsts quenched, all in three minutes, to be back on-field in time for the re-start. The Nation’s Cup will be played on a Custom “Ultimate AirBall” field, emblazoned with Flags of each represented country, including unique custom bunkers, created just for “X Ball” tournaments.

Traveling Trophy:
Just like the world-famous “America’s Cup” Yachting race and the “Indianapolis 500”, each year’s winner will have their Team Name and Country engraved onto the prestigious “Nation’s Cup” traveling Trophy, which will be proudly exhibited at various major Paintball events, for all to admire. National Flags will adorn the perimeter of the gleaming Nation’s Cup trophy, representing every Country in which Paintball is played around the world. Each year, the growing list of annual winners will be added to the engraved brass panels around the solid mahogany base. The spectacular “Nation’s Cup” Trophy was created by “Sparta Pewter”, one of the most respected award designers in North America.

Eight Countries compete: Rumors about this exciting event have already begun, resulting in early Team commitments from Canada, France, Portugal, England, and the USA. Who will rise to the challenge to fill the remaining three positions? Expect commitments soon from any of the following Paintball countries: Argentina, Aruba, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Chile, China, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Korea, Lithuania, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, South Africa, Turkey, or Venezuela.

Many Are Asking “Where Is The Sport Of Paintball Headed?”

While there is much online buzz about the new project

GI MILSIM by Richmond Italia, Adam & Billy Gardner who are both some heavy hitters in the paintball industry the recent announcement that they are going to be reintroducing the .50 Caliber paintball (see Press Release Below) has caught some individuals off guard. Many players instantly think of the thousands of dollars in equipment that they have invested in which is configured for the .68 Caliber paintball size. While not all the details to this new venture are reveled yet there are many players who are automatically seeing this as a negative for the sport of paintball. While the track record of Richmond and the Gardner brothers and their group of trusted employees is very long one and has been a key part of the shape the sport of paintball so far be it the format of Xball to the long standing markers that almost any paintball player has used at one point in time. There still seems to be the feeling that the sport as it stands now will change over to the .50 caliber size and the current players will be stuck with equipment that will no longer be usable. While the verdict is still out on what GI MILSIM’s Pantball 2.0 revolution will mean for many players we here at ThisISPaintball.ca know that this move from Richmond will easily be added to the Eighty Moments That Shaped Paintball.

With a project this large requires a great team for it to work. So why not call upon some players who have defined the sport of paintball and so bring into the GI MILSIM picture Pete “Robbo” Robinson & Chris Lasoya.

Pete “Robbo” Robinson who has a long standing history in paintball in Europe as well in North America while playing for AfterShock, the All Americans and coaching London Nexus just to name a few. Robbo who has won multiple world titles and is a co author of “The Complete Guide To Paintball” and has also written endless amounts of articles for Paintball Games International Magazine. He is a staggering force in the paintball industry and will have a key role in the new direction that GI MILSIM will be taking paintball.

Chris Lasoya who is a much more familar name to newer tournament paintball players due to the long list of teams he has played for from Miami Effect to the LA Ironmen, the popularity of his private line of Bob Long markers the Lasyoa Timmy, to being featured many paintball DVD’s and being profiled on Xtreme Paintball: Beyond the Paint. We all know that Lasoya lives for the sport of paintball and will help bring his dedication to the sport of paintball in the work he will be doing with GI MILSIM.

If you want to understand today, you have to

search yesterday.

A Short Walk Down The Paintball Marker History Lane

The Pursuit Marketing’s PGP. While this photo looks nothing like the original PGP after all the modifications. The top tube was removed to allow for direct feed with a 40rd Ammo Box, a sight rail was added, a 12″ barrel extension was also added along with what looks like a suppressor. Other additions: shoulder stock with tank mount (shown here with 10oz tank attached), Constant Air adapter, offset foregrip from Ruger 10/22 barrel shroud, and combat grips.

.

The Pursuit Marketing’s 68 Magnum. This marker pretty much had it all right out of the box, but as no one is to be satisfied with factory equipment, it has the following added: machined barrel extension w/shroud, offset KG-9 foregrip, molded wood grips, L-stock w/bottle holder, Cooper-T quick strip bolt, and auto-trigger attachment.

.

The National Survival Game’s Splatmaster. It was made for the people just getting into the game and on a limited budget. Its construction is mainly plastic and polymers. Note the camouflage paint job modification as the factory model is all green .

The Mk IV, manufacturer unknown. Constructed mainly from polymers and ABS plastic, it featured a nylon barrel and 25rd reservoir and was powered by a single 12gram CO2 cartridge.

The Crosman 3357 Spotmaker. It uses 50 caliber paintballs instead of the standard 68 caliber. The 3357 is based on the Crosman 357 .177 pellet pistol.

The semi-auto Tippmann SMG 68. It was unique in the fact that it used a 15rd horizontal magazine, which could be loaded with three 5rd stripper clips. This design later went on to become the Tippmann 68 Special.

Press Release from GI MILSIM on P8ntballer-forums.comEvery now and then, rarely in fact, a wind of change blows across the face of paintball and we are witness to a new horizon, now is just such a time. Richmond Italia has once again cranked the wheels of evolution around one more time, and focussed his attention on one of our sport’s prevailing problems. He knew a lot of players were being deterred from continuing in our sport because of the cost, and more importantly, the life-blood of our sport, new tournament players migrating from the rec-ball and scenario scenes, were not even beginning to play for the same reason. The enduring expense for all players is paint; it’s a consumable, and its prolific use means we have a prolific requirement as players, and this expense was becoming a real problem for our sport.

Richmond soon realised his next evolution was going to have to tick not only the expected boxes of innovation but he also needed to tick the box of cheaper paintball …. and that is exactly what he has achieved …… engineered a cheaper paintball.

But it’s a bit more sophisticated than just charging less for paintballs; he has engineered a new paintball with an improved flight trajectory that means they fly farther and more accurately.The historic problem with 50 calibre paintballs was getting them to break consistently; Richmond was obviously aware of this problem and set about engineering a ball that not only broke convention but also broke consistently.

How did he do this?

He headed up a think tank that’s brief was, ‘Engineer a paintball that’s inexpensive, accurate, flies further and breaks on contact’.

His team spent many months tackling their brief and after extensive testing and prototyping, they have produced a ball that finally satisfied the entire spectrum of Richmond’s vision. The results are an evolutionary step forward; A new 50 caliber paintball has been born, and that paintball is now being shot right into the heart of our sport. Richmond has long since believed you need the right people around you to succeed in anything and if there’s one thing he excels at, it’s recognising intelligent and motivated people.Joanne Wheeler has long since been a believer, her loyalty and hard working ethos has already served Richmond well over the years and she was the first to be recruited. In the past he has worked closely with Billy and Adam Gardner at Smart Parts and within a few short hours of explaining his new vision to them, they were signed up and had agreed to adapt a selected range of their own markers to be engineered so they can fire this new caliber ball. After all, this is the first time the paintball was dictating how the markers should be designed instead of the other way around. It was imperative Richmond aligned himself with marker manufacturers who could do the job and who better than the people who bought us the Shocker and Ion and so many more of our sport’s great markers, Billy and Adam Gardner of Smart Parts stepped up to the 50 caliber plate with no hesitation whatsoever.

With those guys on board, Richmond then turned his attention to headhunting a few people who he could trust and would help his cause, Robbo and Chris Lasoya were approached, and as soon as they understood what Richmond was trying to do, they jumped on board faster than a jack-rabbit with its ass on fire. Chris Lasoya has already worked extensively for Richmond and has always been an Italia man; Robbo however hasn’t really been anybody’s man other than his own but when asked to comment on Richmond’s request to join the team, he said, ‘Richmond made me an offer I just couldn’t refuse, my acceptance had nothing to do with money and everything to do with what he was trying to do; Richmond is one of our sport’s true visionaries, I’d have been a mug to turn this opportunity down of working with him and I ain’t no mug’.

The new era of 50 caliber paintball means cheaper paint for the paintballer, it means hundreds more paintballs in the loader, it means thousands more balls in your pots, it means a more accurate flight path, it means it shoots further and all this with the same marking characteristics as the original 68 caliber balls. Never before in the history of our sport have so many of its problems been so positively affected; after all, you ask any baller what he wants and they would answer, ‘I want a cheaper and a more accurate paintball’, it seems in one fell swoop Richmond has revolutionized our sport once again.

He did it with XBall, and he’s done it again with his new 50 caliber ball. The wind of change is upon us all and will sweep right across the face of paintball, ignore it at your peril !

More news will become available as time goes by but rest assured people, this revolution is here to stay, and it’s here to play.

We have just learned that Richmond’s new paintball enterprise will be known as “G.I. Milsim”. Based off that juicy nugget of information we went ahead and did a bit of research. The companies official website appears to be located @ www.GIMilsim.com and contains a major piece to the puzzle. Go ahead and check it out for yourselves..

Richmond’s re-entry into paintball is one thing. Rumors that he is going to revolutionize paintball are another. Learning that Richmond has teamed up with the Gardner brothers? Wow.